


the son of a mermaid and her prince

by highflyer101



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Gen, Post-Mockingjay, also the title's a work in progress so don't judge, and if you don't agree you're wrong, annie is sane enough to raise that baby, because i love annie and i love finnick so obviously i love their son, idk - Freeform, it needed to be done, mostly headcanon, personally i think everything having to do with the hunger games is pretty t-worthy, post-rebellion, t because adult themes i guess?, ya feel?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 06:19:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1377022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/highflyer101/pseuds/highflyer101
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There is a little boy who lives in a little house on the seashore and goes fishing everyday and kisses his mama before he goes to bed. He doesn't have a papa to kiss. Sometimes he thinks he knows why. That doesn't mean he understands it."</p><p>A few snippets into the life of Annie and Finnick's son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the son of a mermaid and her prince

**Author's Note:**

> I started out writing this because I have a really big problem with the idea that after Finnick died, Annie was totally helpless with her son and she needed Johanna despite the fact that Johanna was actually kind of a bitch to her, and I wanted there to be a story showing Annie as what she really is, behind Katniss's somewhat prejudiced assessment of her: a survivor, just like anyone else.
> 
> Then I fell in love with this little boy and I wrote this and sorry if it sucks.

There is a little boy who lives in a little house on the seashore and goes fishing everyday and kisses his mama before he goes to bed. He doesn't have a papa to kiss. Sometimes he thinks he knows why. That doesn't mean he understands it.

* * * * * * * * * *  
His mama is beautiful and her eyes look like grass and her tears taste like the sea. He knows this because sometimes he has to kiss them off her cheeks, like she used to do to him when he was a little baby. And then his mama will smile and press her lips to his forehead and tell him a story, a happy one, because she doesn't want to think of the sad stuff anymore.  


In fact, he can only remember one time when she told him anything upsetting. It started off as a story about a mermaid and a prince who fell in love, but then the mermaid lost her tail and when the prince stepped into the ocean to save her, he drowned, and the beautiful mermaid was alone. He cried because he didn't understand how his mama could think up a story as horrible as that and she smiled despite herself because they lived in a world where he didn't have to understand. But then she snuggled him into the crook of her neck and held him until he had no more tears.  


"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to make you cry."

And he loves his mama for that, because she didn't try to tell him that it was just a story or that four year old boys aren't supposed to cry at things like that. She understood.

* * * * * * * * * *  
He wonders if his mama is lonely. He would be if he were her. After all, she doesn't go to school with him and as far as he knows she doesn't venture into town very often, so who does she have to love her? His mama laughs when he asks her that and tells him that that's what he's there for.  


There's another question too, an unbidden one that he's pondered for a while. He can't help it that day; he knows it will upset her, but it stumbles out of his mouth anyways.

"Why don't I have a papa?" he whispers and his mama's eyes become even softer, if that's possible. She kneels down so she is small like him and she puts her hands on his cheeks.  


"Do you remember the story I told you about the mermaid and her prince?" she asks, and he nods dutifully because how could he forget? "Your papa was exactly like the prince in that story. He was handsome and kind and selfless and loving. And he saved us all."  


"I know he's dead," the little boy says bluntly, because he's not stupid and he's seen his gravestone and everything. "I wanna know why."

"And that's what I'm telling you," his mama replies patiently. "He and I both knew that if we ever had a baby, our baby deserved to live in a better world. All children did. So we both decided to fight for that world. And he died." The boy is so in awe that he doesn't notice how Mama's voice cracked on the last word. He doesn't even know she is crying until she is holding him and her tears are leaking through his shirt.

* * * * * * * * * *  
All little boys grow older and this one is no exception. He turns ten on a sunny day in July and his whole class from school comes over. It's the first time seeing his house for some of his friends, and he doesn't miss the way their parents stare at his mama and peer over her shoulder, trying to see how this secluded, broken family lives. He doesn't completely understand the fascination with their lifestyle yet, but it fills him with a righteous rage anyways. They are just people. Can't everyone let them be?  


As a surprise, a blond man brings out a beautiful cake decorated like the sea. The little boy thinks he recognizes the man and the quiet woman he's with, and clearly everyone else does, because they all gape at the couple openly.  


After all his friends have left his mama tells him that these people are Peeta and Katniss, and he's met them before, when he was little. They came because they have exciting news to share: they are having a baby.  


They all eat dinner together and his mama seems happy to see these relative strangers. They insist on sleeping on the couch in the den and the little boy hears them talking to each other when he tiptoes out of his room to get a glass of milk.  


"He looks just like him, Peeta," Katniss breathes. "It's eerie."

"I know," Peeta responds, and it makes the boy angry. Because everyone was staring at them today, so don't they know what it's like when everyone is looking at you and analyzing you, comparing you to the past? He used to like being told he was just like his father, but things are different now that he's even a little bit aware of the stigma attached to his family. He doesn't want to feel like he and his mother are just two souvenirs of the past. He wants to feel like they are people who feel things and miss those who are gone more than anything.  


He goes back to bed without getting his milk.

* * * * * * * * * *  
When little boys (and girls) are eleven, they are deemed old enough to learn about the Old Panem, because that's when they would've been old enough to participate in it. He brings home a permission slip for his mama to sign, saying that he can watch videos about how things used to be.  


For a long while, she is very quiet. Then she breathes deeply and guides him to the kitchen table and tells him all of it before his teachers have a chance.

He cries even harder than he did when she told him about the mermaid and the prince.

* * * * * * * * * *  
He recognizes the gleam in his classmates' eyes after the lesson is finished.

They are looking at him like their parents do.

* * * * * * * * * *  
His classmates used to make fun of him because his best friend was his mother and everyone knew she was odd. He wore their names like badges of honor.

Now they don't mention his parents, and they look away if someone brings it up. It sounds strange, but he misses being teased.

* * * * * * * * * *  
Sometimes he wonders what people would be like if they knew the truth of it all, like he does.

He wonders what it would be like to tell them all about what it's like when his mama cries, or how it feels to know that his papa was a toy before he was a person and then he was dead. Maybe then people would stop whispering about his parents when he walked past them in town.  
That would be nice, he thinks.

* * * * * * * * * *  
His mama takes him to the Capitol for his fifteenth birthday and they both hate it. It is too loud and fake and they both cry more than ever when people stop them in the streets and tell them how much they respect his papa, the war hero, Finnick Odair, and how thankful they are for his sacrifice.  


"It wasn't a sacrifice," he wants to scream, because that word makes it sound so pretty and nice and noble. "It was just a death and it was dark where he went and my mama was alone."  


The only people in the Capitol who don't make him want to punch something are the other Victors there. There's Katniss and Peeta, who are there with their two little children for a meeting with President Paylor, and also look vaguely uncomfortable the whole time. Then there's a surly man called Haymitch who tagged along and is constantly picking up a glass of whiskey only to have Peeta put it back down. Lastly there's a woman named Johanna, who his mama doesn't seem to particularly like, but apparently she was friends with his father.  


"So, boy," Haymitch starts during dinner at Katniss and Peeta's hotel room one night. "How are you liking the Capitol?"

"I hate it," the boy replies on instinct and Johanna cackles from the other end of the table.  


"Thank fuck for that," she laughs. "Guess you didn't inherit your mom's crazy genes." His mama's fingers tense around her fork and knife and the boy scowls protectively.  


"Mama never liked the Capitol," he says defensively and his mama smiles at him like she is in the middle of a deep, dank tunnel and he is her only light. He grins back.

He doesn't like Johanna very much either.

* * * * * * * * * *  
It never escapes him that if he were his father, he would've killed children by now and he would've slept with people for secrets by now. In fact, he thinks about it a lot: he wonders if he could have stayed good like his father did, or if he would have made his own world like his mother, or if he would become mean like Johanna.  


Or maybe he would've just died.

He knows that's what was most likely when kids like him went into the Games, but he does his best to avoid thinking about it. He doesn't want to picture a real person's body sprawled on the ground, pale and bloated and stinking of death. He doesn't want to give a personality to the people his parents were forced to kill, because that only makes it so much harder to love them. He understands, of course, that they had no choice, but there are still times when he sees another, more muscled version of himself, one that other people would recognize as his father, spearing teenagers through with a trident, and he wants to vomit.

* * * * * * * * * *  
He would never admit it to anyone, because it's pretty embarrassing for a sixteen year old boy, but at night he dreams about a man with sea green eyes and curly blond hair who takes him fishing.

In his dreams his papa is funny and kind, and he always kisses his mama like they're both still shy, lovesick teenagers. He tells the boy jokes as they walk down the shore and offers wise advice.

One night the boy dreams his father says, "What if it were always like this? Wouldn't that be great?" and the boy smiles so wide his face nearly splits in half.

When he wakes up, his room is empty and his papa is dead. Like a child, he sneaks into his mother's room and buries himself under her covers. She holds him like a baby.

* * * * * * * * * *  
There is a girl at school who is beautiful and her eyes look like the sky and her hair smells like the sea. She sits next to him in Biology and doesn't look at him except to laugh at his unfunny jokes and he is in love with her.

His mama smiles when he tells her and smooths his hair back from his forehead.

"I was your age when I met your father, you know."

* * * * * * * * * *  
The girl with eyes like the sky has lips that taste how sunshine feels and the boy thinks he could be freezing and her love would still keep him warm. She has never asked him about his parents before and he worships her for that, because it almost feels like he is just a boy with her.

Her favorite place in the world is a cave above the ocean, where she used to keep her seashell collection when she was small. She guides him there with gentle hands and he memorizes every nook and cranny of it, because in them he knows he'll find the secret to her heart.

When he uncovers it, he whispers her name like a secret in her ear and says that he loves her. They are lying on the floor of her cave and it is there, in the darkness, where they set fire to each other's bodies for the first time.

"I love you too," she whispers back.

* * * * * * * * * *  
His mama meets the girl with eyes like the sky and she loves her like a daughter. When she smiles, there are tears in her eyes because she is so happy, and when the boy asks, she helps him look for a ring.

She isn't there when the boy swims to the cave to give his heart away once and for all, but she is there when he comes back to shore hand in hand with the love of his life. She kisses both their foreheads and invites them inside for supper and remembers what it was like to know her love was hers to keep, back before he died. She is too glad for their son to cry at the thought like she used to.

The boy does not think he could ever be happier if he tried.

* * * * * * * * * *  
There is a not so little boy who lives in a house on the seashore and swims to a cave everyday with a girl who looks at him and sees her whole world. He has a mama who visits him and no papa. He can never be sure why, but then he looks at his children and his wife and he feels his heart brimming with love, and somehow, he understands.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if you think any of the characters are OOC... It's been a while since I read the books and honestly, Annie's kind of mysterious even then, because Katniss is not that reliable of a narrator and probably overemphasizes the effects of Annie's PTSD (but that's a meta for another time). And the characters with bigger roles in the books don't appear in this fic until 10-15 years later, so that kind of added another dimension...
> 
> Anyways, enough with the excuses... Hopefully you guys like this, and please please please comment/kudos if you did! Thanks!


End file.
